


the sky's got nothing on you

by TheBookshelfDweller



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Again, Fix-It, M/M, Mutual Pining, Smut, Spoilers, because that's my jam, civil war spoilers, ignore the wishy-washy psychology i just needed to fix it ok?, they're in love i tell ya
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-08
Updated: 2016-05-08
Packaged: 2018-06-07 03:33:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,631
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6783490
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheBookshelfDweller/pseuds/TheBookshelfDweller
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“…he said ‘Bucky’ and suddenly I was that 16-year old kid from Brooklyn again.”</p><p>The kids from Brooklyn finally catch a break.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the sky's got nothing on you

**Author's Note:**

> Once again: Civil War spoilers
> 
> I just have so many Bucky Barnes feels.

_“…he said ‘Bucky’ and suddenly I was that 16-year old kid from Brooklyn again.”_

* * *

 

The Wakandan sky is heavy with sunlight, the horizon threatening with a summer storm barely visible on its edges. The air is humid and hot. It smells like the rainforest and the origin of all living things, green and thick and overwhelming. Steve’s grey t-shirt clings to him in sweaty patches and his heart is hammering in his chest, only partly because of exertion.

“We need you to come. We think we might have found a way”, T’Challa had said on the phone. Hope had flared so bright that Steve had almost crumpled under the weight of it. Sometimes hope hurt worse than grief. But Steve’s had a long time to learn how to work through the pain of anything and everything, so he packed a bag and called in a favour. Within four hours, he was tracking through the rainforest towards the Black Panther complex.

Inside of the complex, the air is cool and crisp, and Steve watches as the dark clouds roll in like a sudden bad memory, the way they only do in the tropics. T’Challa meets him in the lobby of the medical bay and briefs him on the theory.

“Could it really be that simple?”, Steve asks.

“My experts think so”, T’Challa says, handing him a piece of paper – a list of words. “But it is not as simple as it seems. You must be careful.”

Steve nods. The weight of what he is about to do feels heavier than the buildings he kept from collapsing in New York, in DC, in Sokovia. And yet, it feels like a lightness, too. Like hope. Heavy-light.

They talk some more while the sky outside closes in on itself, the distant rumble of thunder rolling closer. After a while, T’Challa leaves Steve to his thoughts, telling him they’re ready when he is.

Steve stands in front of the windows as the rain starts pelting down. Through the glass walls, the world looks painted in watercolour. Steve looks out, at the blurring image, and remembers. He knows what to do.

It’s a long life and Steve’s no longer certain if the memories are keeping him alive or slowly killing him. Maybe they’re keeping alive those that had perished along the way. Steve would have given his life for them. Maybe he is giving it now, too late. But this is the best he can do with them. The best he can do for the one person left for whom it might yet matter.

‘ _I’m not sure I’m worth all of this, Steve.’_

But Steve is sure. He knows, as surely as he knows his name and the colour of his mother’s favourite dress and the coldness of ice, that Bucky is worth all of it, and more. So, he does it for Bucky. Always for Bucky.

The world outside is a painting of rain and wilderness and Steve Rogers does his best. He picks a memory and plunges in.

He remembers his sixteenth birthday the way he does everything these days – with a soft ache, like pressing on a healing bruise, a tender, purple-shot thing he just can’t help but reach for.

Steve’s ma had still been alive back then, her brightness undeniable even if the worn lines of worry and too many work hours spent taking on the anguish of others had already given her the feel of frayed edges.  
Steve remembers their flat had been modest, but it had been a home in a way nothing else ever would be again, except maybe the shoe-box he and Bucky rented after Sarah died. Except maybe Bucky himself. He remembers how very young they were back then.

 

* * *

 

_The 4 th of July fell on a Sunday that year, meaning Steve didn’t have to drag himself out of bed at fuck-o’clock in the morning to go to work. The morning came in a heavy, hot haze of mid-summer, already too hot to think by the time 9 o’clock rolled in. Everything seemed sun-bleached, warm and dry, the blue sky the greatest shock of colour among the withered grass and the dusty streets._

_Steve woke up to an empty flat – his ma had a half-shift that day. She’d left him a note saying happy birthday, next to a stack of real, freshly made bacon and eggs, with a promise to be back in time for them to go see the fireworks on the riverbank later on._

_The knock on the door came just as he was doing up his shirt buttons. Steve hurried to the door. He found Bucky standing on the threshold, a package wrapped in brown butcher’s paper under his arm._

_“Hey, Buck”, Steve said. “Aren’t you supposed to be at work?”_

_There was work even on holidays, for those who wanted it. It paid better than regular work hours, and Bucky could rarely afford not to earn the extra money, what with four siblings at home._

_“Traded my shifts”, Bucky said. “I figured I’d come see if Sarah made bacon today.” Bucky’s hair was messy and clean, with no pomade in it. He grinned at Steve the way he always did – like Steve had just told the best joke._

_Steve snorted, letting Bucky into the kitchen. Despite the joke, he didn’t go straight for the bacon – he never ate much at Steve’s place, knowing that meat was hard to come by._

_“Here”, he said, thrusting the package into Steve’s hands. “Happy birthday.”_

_Steve took the package. It felt heavy._

_“Buck… You shouldn’t have bought me anything.”_

_Bucky rolled his eyes, his face fond and exasperated. Even so, he couldn’t hide the excitement in his eyes_

_“Just open it. Go on.”_

_Knowing he would achieve anything by arguing – not this time – Steve ripped open the gift._

_A shiny tin box of watercolours stood on top of a thick sketchpad, with a couple of fine paintbrushes next to it._

_“Bucky…”, Steve breathed. He’d been eyeing the watercolours for months now, catching a glimpse of them in the shop window. He could have saved up to buy them, but they were no use without proper paper and brushes, and those Steve just couldn’t afford to waste money on._

_Suddenly, a couple of things made much more sense._

_Steve remembered asking Bucky if he wanted to go to the dance halls on the weekends and Bucky saying “Nah, not tonight” every single time, just to have Steve look at him strangely and ask why._

_“Don’t feel like it, Stevie”, Bucky would say._

_“What? Scared you lost your touch with the ladies?”, Steve’d teased, trying not to dwell too much on the strangeness of Bucky staying at home every night. Bucky would just smile, somewhere half-way between his cocky grin and something much more wistful that Steve couldn’t even begin to understand, and say:_

_“Yeah, that’s it.”_

_He must have been saving up for months, Steve realises, skipping all those dances just so he could buy the watercolours and the sketchpad in time for Steve’s birthday._

_Steve’s chest felt tight, not entirely unlike one of his asthma attacks, but this pain was somehow more bittersweet than suffocating._

_“So, are you just gonna stand there and stare at them or are ya gonna use them?” Bucky asked, his voice teasing, but his traitor hands betraying him as he fidgeted with the hem of his sleeves.  Steve almost wanted to laugh –_ Bucky _being nervous, over this. Dear God, over this, of all things. As if he hadn’t just given Steve something so precious, as if he hadn’t just reached inside of Steve’s chest and grabbed him by the heart without even knowing._

_“Well, sit down and hold still then”, Steve said, cracking the box of watercolours open and pushing a chair out to Bucky._

_“Christ, you need a new model, Rogers. Ain’t you tired of drawing my face already?”_

_“Nah, this way I’m always sure that no matter how bad I draw it, it’ll still be prettier than the original”, Steve smirked into the sketchpad. He could feel Bucky huffing a silent laugh as he settled into the chair, straddling it and putting his arms on the back of it._

_“Punk.”_

_“Jerk.”_

_“Get on with it then.”_

_“You can’t hurry art, Buck.”_

_Bucky snorted but stayed still, his eyes trained on Steve as Steve went to the sink and filled a cup with water before setting it on the table and picking up a brush._

_“Don’t move”, Steve said._

_“Wouldn’t dream of it”, Bucky replied, and Steve didn’t let himself think about how soft it sounded, like surrender and a gift. He dipped the brush into water and started on the painting._

_The thrill of it shot through him like always – the feeling of giving but becoming more through it, of letting something restless from under his skin and yet becoming fuller. It was the way he always felt while drawing, both buzzing and at peace._

_And Bucky – Bucky watched Steve with something akin to pride (akin to…), watched him spill the red like spilling his own blood to soak into the paper. Something flared in Steve’s chest, just under his breastbone, like a young bird trying to fly, its feathery wings making it hard for Steve to breathe._

_They sat like that for just short of an hour before Steve set down the brush, his hands smudged with watery stains._

_“Right then, let’s see it”, Bucky said, stretching out of the chair to loosen up his stiffness of sitting still for so long. He didn’t reach for the pad – Bucky never did, never tried to grab what was not his for the taking – just waited for Steve to show him._

_But Steve couldn’t._

_He didn’t know why. It wasn’t the first time he’d drawn Bucky, not by far, nor the first time he’d let Bucky see his drawings. That wasn’t it. And yet, Steve couldn’t. He couldn’t show Bucky the painting because…_

_…because the painting was…it was Bucky, his pale eyes and his dark hair and his red lips and that was nothing new but it was also_ Bucky _, his pale eyes through Steve’s eyes, his dark hair through Steve’s fingers, painted the way Steve imagined it would feel to the touch, his red lips painted like Steve let himself bleed the colour into them, and Steve…Steve was scared. Scared that Bucky would_ see, _that Bucky would_ know _, because it was so obvious, spelled out on paper, and oh…Steve was seeing it now too._

_He looked from the painting back to Bucky and a strange feeling of calm settled over him, like being in the eye of the storm._

_‘I’m in love with you’, Steve thought. It felt like the most natural thing in the world. It felt like finally breathing right._

_It wasn’t as much his heart saying ‘oh, hello, that’s what it is, this is who you are to me’ as much as his mind finally catching up with the feeling that’s been lingering around for so long now and his heart saying ‘good morning, dumbass, nice of you to finally get there’._

_“Steve?” Bucky sounded uncertain, but tried to hide it, his soft smile still in place. “Come on, it can’t be that bad. I promise I won’t laugh. A lot.”_

_Steve wanted to kiss him._

_He wanted to reach out and pull Bucky in by his suspenders, tangle one hand in that messy hair, and kiss him until Bucky felt like art, until he felt how Steve felt while painting him._

_He didn’t. Instead, Steve pushed to sketchpad across the table, suddenly unable to look at Bucky. After a few beats of silence, Bucky still hadn’t said anything, so Steve looked at him, breathing fast. Bucky was staring at the painting with a peculiar expression – like surprise and wonder and pain, all wrapped up in each other. Steve cleared his throat._

_“I haven’t done anything in watercolour for a while, so…”_

_This seemed to snap Bucky out of his reverie._

_“Nah, it’s perfect. You’ve still got it, Stevie”, he said softly. Then, as if he’d checked himself, he grinned again. “Easy, though, when you’ve got such a handsome model.”_

_Relief and a feeling dangerously alike to disappointment warred in Steve’s chest. In the end he decided to play along, grateful for the safety of teasing._

_“Modesty’s always been your strong suit, Buck.”_

_“You know it, punk.”_

The memory peters out like a long held breath, the dry warmth of Brooklyn July replaced by the air-conditioned freshness of the medical bay foyer and the sound of heavy mid-summer rain. Steve can still feel it in his blood, under his skin. Like art. Like that urge to be more and less at the same time. Like the urge to kiss Bucky. It’s all he needs. He looks down at the list of words in his hand, takes and deep breath, and hopes.

* * *

 

The cryo pod looks nothing like the one pictured in the Winter Soldier’s file, but Steve still feels slightly sick looking at Bucky’s slack face behind the fiberglass. He hopes Bucky’s cold-induced sleep is dreamless and peaceful, at least.

“Alright, I’m ready”, he says. T’Challa is there, along with the doctors. No one tries to suggest that Steve leave the room while the wake Bucky up – apparently T’Challa knows better than to ask Steve to be anywhere apart from by Bucky’s side, and it seems he has instructed his staff accordingly.

“Remember”, one of the technicians says, her accent almost imperceptible. “He will probably be disorientated.”

Steve nods. He knows ‘ _disorientated’_ is code for possibly worse things. He steps closer to the cryo pod. The soft hissing of the pod thawing and opening is the only sound filling the room for a moment and Steve is almost scared to blink, lest he misses the moment Bucky wakes up. He’s already missed so many of such moments.

Bucky’s eyes flutter open, the movement reflecting in Steve’s heart. Bucky casts a muddled look around the room, eyes unfocused until they fall on Steve.

“Hey, Buck”, Steve says. Bucky closes his eyes again, as if trying to remember something. His body is tense, his breathing shallow and fast and Steve _aches_.  After a few moments Bucky swallows hard.

“Steve”, he croaks. Steve feels faint with relief.

“Yeah, it’s me.”

There’s a few more beats of silence before…

“It’s rude to wake up old people for no good reason, Rogers”, Bucky says, eyes still closed but his breathing deep and easy. Steve’s laughter flies out of him, a shock of sound he doesn’t even remember starting. Bucky opens his eyes then, clearer this time.

“There’s a reason, Buck, I promise”, Steve says.

“Okay”, Bucky replies, as if it’s that simple – trusting Steve, just like that. There’s a reason – okay. It makes Steve believe in marvels.

They take Bucky out of the pod and sit him down on an examination table to check his vitals. He sits through it patiently, his eyes never leaving Steve’s. After making sure Bucky won’t stop breathing anytime soon, they take them to one of the private rooms branching off of the medical wing. Bucky follows quietly, betraying no feeling, but Steve knows him better than that and he can feel the subtle coiled tension in Bucky’s body. He doesn’t know what’s going on and he preparing himself for anything. Steve wants to touch him so badly, but it’s not the time.

They’re ushered into a spacious room with a large bed and bland, generic furniture, much like a hotel room. The rain is still sliding down the floor-to-ceiling windows, their own personal waterfall.

There’s a sofa and a couple of lounge chairs, but Steve sits on the edge of the bed, leaving enough space for it to be a silent invitation, but he doesn’t push. Bucky just walks over and sits next to him.

“How long have I been under?”, he asks.

“Six months, give or take.”

Bucky nods.

“What’s changed now?”

Steve doesn’t know how to start, so he just goes for it. Typical, just jumping, no parachute strapped to his back. Peggy would have laughed. Some things never change.

“Do you remember my sixteenth birthday?”, he asks. Bucky looks at him with a question in his eyes but plays along.

“Some of it”, he nods. Steve takes a deep breath. Hope burns like alcohol in his chest.

“You got me watercolours and a new sketchpad. Brushes, too. I made you pose for me.”

“You always did that”, Bucky adds quietly, obviously trying to work out where all of this is going.

“Yeah, I did.”

Then like pushing off a cliff, off a mountain built out of years of silence, Steve starts talking. It’s a story ages in the making, but he still doesn’t feel ready. That doesn’t matter, however. He just hopes it will be enough. It has to be enough, because there’s nothing more than this that he can give.

“I remember thinking that looking at you felt the same way painting did. I guess it was longing, I just didn’t recognise it at the time”, Steve swallows. “God, I feel rusted. Never thought I’d be telling you this”, he says, but then he smiles – a soft, small thing. “I’m glad I get to do it though. Back then, I was so scared you would notice. So scared you wouldn’t, too. I wasn’t even sure I’d live to be seventeen and I was scared of you never knowing as much as I was of you finding out. Then I did live to be seventeen, then eighteen, and all the years after that and still I couldn’t find the guts to tell you. I would watch you get up for work, watch you and think ‘ _he’s my start of day’_ , rising before daybreak and meaning morning before the Sun was even up. And I wanted to tell you, but I didn’t. I remember the winters when we would sleep in the same bed because you were scared I’d freeze to death and you were like a furnace and I felt like all I was doing was taking. I wanted to tell you then too.  Each time I felt like I was nine again and I had to tell my mum I’d spent my lunch money on new pencils and I didn’t know how to. God, I wanted you to know. But then you would look at me every time I caught a cough, fearing this one wouldn’t turn out to be benign, looking worried and tired, and I would hope you didn’t know because it would hurt less that way if that winter turned out to be my last.”

Bucky is looking at him like he’s…Steve doesn’t even know what that look is. There’s too much there.

“I remember painting you that time for my sixteenth, and looking down, finally understanding and, dear God, Buck, it felt like a homecoming. Like it was the one thing I wanted to always have. Watching you with the girls, I thought it must feel like getting hit by a freight car, but it didn’t. It just felt like being home.”

“Steve…”, Bucky starts, sounding wrecked, but then stops. His face shifts, shock making his eyes go wide. “You said…you said freight car.”

Steve just nods, his heart hammering in his chest. He can see Bucky thinking, can almost see the thoughts chasing on each other’s tails.

“You said freight car…and longing and…” realisation dawns on Bucky’s face, just for a second before his expression turns and then he’s yelling.

“What the fuck, Steve? Are you insane?”

It’s so much emotion after so much emptiness, Steve wants to weep with relief and joy. Bucky gets up, starts pacing.

“I could have killed you! Are you completely out of your mind? What if I’d turned, what if I’d…Steve, you dumbass, you…I’m gonna kill you.”

But Steve is smiling now, can’t help it. Bucky looks torn between fury and exasperation.

“No you won’t.”

Bucky stops pacing and looks back at Steve.

“No, I won’t”, he says, and there’s such relief in his words, and disbelief, that Steve feels his heart trying to tear itself apart.

“How did you come up with this?”

“I didn’t. T’Challa’s team was trying to work out how to remove the triggers while you were asleep. Natasha helped. They thought that maybe using the trigger words as a part of a positive memory could help. We won’t know for sure how well it worked until we try them out without the story, but this is a good sign, Buck.”

Bucky looks incredulous. He stands in the middle of the room, staring at Steve like he can’t believe him, except he can, just a little bit. He moves like he’s gonna come right at Steve but changes his mind in the last moment and comes to sit next to him on the bed instead. He leans his arms on his knees and lets his head hang between his shoulders, staring at the floor.

“How did you pick the memory?”, he asks. Steve wasn’t expecting this, but he knows he has to tell the truth.

“The docs said it had to be one that would elicit a strong emotional response. Something that would override the triggers, distract your mind from focusing on them.”

He can see the corner of Bucky’s mouth turn up in a wry smile.

“I was so nervous that day. It was your birthday and I’ve been saving up to get you those watercolours and I was so nervous if you’d like them. I remember walking to your ma’s place and that it was hot, and that the sky was insane. Blue as anything and cloudless, seemed to stretch on and on. Fucking majestic”, he says, looking down. “I wanted to tell you back then. That day. I wanted to tell you so many things, so many times. Never did though.”

Steve holds his breath.

“Things like what?”                                           

Bucky raises his head to look at him. His face is set, determined in a way only someone who’s lived too long not to know how fleeting chances like this one are can be.

“Like that the sky had nothin’ on you. That your eyes must have been the first blue I’ve ever seen and that you were so much bigger than the sky.” Bucky shrugs. “I was sixteen. I was a kid. Didn’t know what I wanted to say was ‘ _I love you_ ’. Or maybe I did but I was too chicken to say it.”

“Guess we both were”, Steve breathes.

“Yeah”, Bucky says, quiet and a bit sad, the way missed opportunities are. “I guess we were.”

He looks at Steve and there’s peace in his eyes, the tired kind that comes from too many lessons, too many mistakes, but it’s peace nonetheless.

“I’m saying it now, though”, he says and Steve doesn’t know how they know to move in sync, but they do – they always did – so when Bucky leans in he does too and they meet in the middle, finally in the right place at the right time.

Bucky kisses him like a thousand regrets and a thousand apologies and hope, so much hope. Steve kisses back just the same, all the near-misses, all the loss right there in the way their lips catch on each other. They kiss like time running backwards, like over a century worth of lost and found things. Bucky sighs into Steve’s mouth, tongue slipping past the border of Steve’s lips and then they’re kissing like crashing airplanes, like speeding trains in snowy mountains, like war, like rushing blood and the rawness of rain and mud and survival instincts. Steve feels like he’s breathing right for the first time in decades. Bucky frames his face with his hands while Steve slips one of his into Bucky’s hair, the other resting on the nape of Bucky’s neck. Bucky grazes Steve’s lower lip with his teeth and Steve moans.

When they break apart for air, Bucky keeps hold of Steve’s face, tracing one thumb over Steve’s cheek. His eyes are soft, younger than they’ve been in ages. When he leans back in, the kiss is soft, tentative, more like a first than the previous one and they kiss like they’re sixteen, like all of this is new and clumsy and a thing of youth.

“I’m saying it now”, Bucky repeats in a whisper against Steve’s lips.

“Yeah. Yeah, me too”, Steve replies.

Bucky scoots up on the bed, pulling Steve next to him. Their kiss grows hungry, more teeth among the gentleness. Their legs tangle together until they’re pressed against each other. Rocking into each other, they feel like the waves on the beach at Coney Island, never ceasing. It feels endless and blue and fucking majestic, like the sky, but oh, the sky’s got nothing on them.

“Buck, are you sure?” Steve asks between kisses, his eyes dark and his hair a mess. Bucky looks like he’s about to crack a joke or some wise-ass remark, but he just kisses Steve again.

“Yeah. Yeah, I am. You?”

“Yes.”

Bucky trails one hand down Steve’s back until he reaches his hips, pulling Steve in against him, feeling the hardness of him against his leg, feels the shudder that runs through Steve. They keep up their rhythm for a while, tangling tongues and colliding bodies until they both feel near to the edge.

“Not like this”, Bucky breathes, fumbling to undo Steve’s trousers. “I want to feel you.”

Steve groans, burying his head in Bucky’s shoulder. They manage to undo their trousers just enough reach for each other without the barrier of clothing between them. When Steve takes his cock in hand, Bucky feels like he might be dying – nothing in life could feel so good. He reaches for Steve, strokes him and thinks that men were wrong to ever write prayers because the stuttered breath Steve sucks in when Bucky takes him in hand is the greatest benediction ever to be made.

“Together”, Steve says, pushing the word into Bucky’s mouth, and Bucky can’t do anything but move closer. They clasp their joint hands around both of them, legs still intertwined, their kisses getting messy.

They stroke and rock against each other until the heat and the friction feel like that summer almost a century ago, until there’s the dust of Brooklyn streets around them, and there’s the watercolour bleeding between them, their sweat painting them into a masterpiece, the lazy, simple warmth of July the only thing they feel.

Steve comes first and Bucky is so happy in that moment his own orgasm catches him by surprise.

They shake against each other for a while, breathing hard and not letting go. Bucky cards his hands through Steve’s sweaty hair, gazing at him with such adoration that Steve feels far too naked for a man almost completely dressed. He takes Bucky’s hand in his and brings it to his lips, kissing every knuckle in turn.

“I should have told you when we were sixteen. I just didn’t think we wouldn’t have time later. I thought we were immortal, that we’d live to be a hundred and that there would be time”, he says.

“Well, we did live to be a hundred”, Bucky says, his eyes twinkling, and Steve feels like he could cry. But it’s a long life and Steve knows that there’s been far too little laughter in it, so he doesn’t cry. He laughs, free and happy and young, maybe for the first time in decades.

“Jerk.”

Bucky looks at him like he’s the blue, blue sky.

“Punk.”

For a moment, they’re just those 16 year-old kids from Brooklyn again.


End file.
